What
I’m saying here is not going to win me any friends, but, hey, someone
has to say it.

It’s
all about our ”selves” and this thing we call “entitlement.”

The
words and sentences I’ve put together are not posed against those
who do try, who do stand up and accept their consequences, or those
who are sick or even those who cannot get past their serious condition
or problem. This is meant for most of us who want to get rich doing
nothing and living a life of convenience.

It
irritates me when I see completely healthy looking people hang a handicap
sign on their rearview mirror, pull into a handicap slot, and then
dash into the store. Granted, some people have invisible physical
and mental challenges, while others are just plain lazy or too rushed
to walk to the entranceway. Equally bad is when the so-called handicapped
person has her husband drop her off in front of a store, and then
he goes and parks into a handicapped spot when he’s perfectly healthy.
Yet there is nothing left for the old man struggling to move his walker
inch by inch from the far end of a parking lot to the store door because
all the handicapped spots are taken.

Who
do I bring this up? Because it leads to the issue of self-accountability.
Consider the obese—not those who can’t help themselves because they
have some underlying medical condition--but instead those who have
eaten themselves to blimp size and are now getting handicap stickers
or license plates, and special treatment like high-loaded medical
care everyone else pays for through rising insurance premiums because
the uncontrolled tubbies won’t practice self-discipline. They whine
that their being fat and consuming a dozen eggs a day, or a loaf of
bread, or a package of hot dogs is not their fault. I understand that
there are many people who are overweight because of valid health reasons,
and that there are some who look perfectly well enough to run a 4K
when inside their chests their tickers aren’t cooperating . . . but
to unfairly sabotage a disadvantaged person’s access—as in the case
of the old man using a walker as cited above—because one’s too fat
to walk, sounds like a personal problem to me…the problem of the person
gorging himself or herself. People must start taking responsibility
for themselves rather than blame doctors for not stopping them from
eating too much, or cursing the food industry for making fattening
food, or damning the restaurants for preparing and serving calorific
meals. Our society does a lot of scapegoating and blame-projection.

I
was unpleasantly plump once but didn’t hold anyone liable for my condition
but me, myself, and I which is when I took control and disciplined
myself to lose weight. I never would have thought of blaming my parents—though
in some instances my mom would whip up deep fried foods, hot homemade
breads, and fabulous deserts for a Sunday meal. I knew ultimately,
though, that it was I who had to take hold of my monster and fight
it, and that it was not the duty of my parents, or my doctors, or
my friends, or the restaurants, or the MVA, or the grocery stores,
or the farmers or food companies.

You’re
living in poverty, you say, and can’t get yourself cleaned up to hunt
for a job? That’s the employers’ fault, the rich people’s doing, the
landlord’s cheapness, or society’s abandonment of you. No, it’s just
you. Soap is cheap and polishes our bodies amazingly well. The Goodwill
and other agencies exist to help those needing clean clothes and food.
Many institutions offer scholarships and grants or reduced tuition
to encourage the less fortunate to get a certificate in a specialty
or an associate degree in a career field. There are volunteers willing
to tutor the academically deficient. Nearly every educational system
in every state offers GED classes for free or rock-bottom costs.

The
point is that people need jobs, and they need ways to prepare themselves
to get these jobs. Maybe you don’t qualify for a rocket science job,
but work is work, and if you’re poor, you need to find ways to survive
and become a productive citizen in an all too exploding population
and limited employment due to unfair outsourcing. Still there is work,
even if you think it’s “below you,” so stop blaming others and take
hold of your “self,” swallow that unbecoming pride, and motivate and
move yourself.

Oh,
your four-room apartment is filthy? Isn’t cleanliness next to Godliness?
There are also ways to clean up one’s living quarters to ward off
infestation just as soap and water can “hygenisize” our faces and
bodies. Even dollar-stores have cleaning equipment and supplies, so
rather than wallowing in your state of affairs, you should be taking
active roles in improving or fixing them. Doing nothing about your
situation and waiting for something “good” to happen, or for someone
to come along and take care of you and solve your problems, are real
cop-outs, and selfish, because you shift your burden unto others who
don’t want or deserve to be laden by your inconsideration and irresponsibility.

I
see . . . your mother made you crazy, your father was an alcoholic,
your brother a junkie, and your sister a hooker, so you can be a thief
because you’re entitled to that since you’ve come from such a wretched
background. But others who have grown up in worse circumstances and
lived in even more dysfunctional families have managed to lift themselves
up. They fought for what was just, acted with morals and values, and
believed that they, themselves, could make a major change in their
lives, and then did so. Again: Choice and self-empowerment. I, for
one, am tired of picking up the slack left by people who have no sense
of what accountability is or what is expected of a “good citizen.”

Here’s
one: You’ve spent millions of dollars to build that massive mansion
you’ve always wanted at the edge of the shore, in a flood zone, or
in a landscape where forest fires are common and devastating, and
then suddenly you lose your home and all your belongings to a fire
or hurricane or monsoon, or flood, and now you want all Americans
to help you financially by paying higher taxes to government emergency
agencies. So why would you a build a home in those spots in the first
place, and why would you rebuild there in the second place? Anyone
in need of help in America is seldom turned away but your fellow countrymen
do get tired of paying more and higher taxes and premiums for the
selfish and self-indulgent decisions you make, particularly when you
know ahead that your choice may result in disaster. Take responsibility!

And,
let’s see, you have arteries that clog up like mudslides but you still
want those fries, the burgers, the pizza—all of which will only worsen
your condition; yet you feel that your illness should reap some pity
and that you shouldn't be held accountable for any of it, right? After
all, you can’t help it if you were born with lousy blood vessels.
Well, guess what--it’s up to you to take care of your own problems.
Having been sick myself, I know that of all the loads to haul, illness
of any type has to be one of the heaviest, and one that often we have
no control over. But our attitude is still in our sole possession.
I’ve seen people dying with cancer who were less selfish, less self-indulgent,
less self-pitying, less self-centered than those of us who have mere
colds, even though we know we’ll be well again in either two weeks
or fourteen days. If anyone has a right to whimper for their botched
health care, or the surgical mistake performed on them, it is they
who are ill, and yet, they’re likely the last to complain. Let’s have
a reality check!

Doesn’t
it make you want to punch the wall when you’re spending more money
on your county’s educational system and the kids aren’t learning,
and don’t care to? If anything, they’re more truant than ever, and
they can’t do basic math, can’t speak properly, can’t write a correct
sentence, don’t know how to present themselves in public, don’t show
respect for adults, and find millions of excuses for why their circumstances
are so defensible and justifiable? Woe is they. Don’t you want to
kick their butts and yell, “Hey! Get off the sofa,” or “Stop hanging
out with friends,” or “Do your homework”? It worries me that we are
producing a generation of slothful, dumbed-down, irresponsible, unaccountable
future leaders who have been raised with too much materialism and
virtually no structure or limitations. And whose fault is that? Who
should take the blame for them? The schools? The parents? The textbooks?
The students themselves? So, what do we do? Maybe the answer lies
in slapping our kids silly while praying that someone doesn’t report
us for child abuse lest the all too intrusive government steps in
and tells us how to raise our own flesh and blood.

I
remember when growing up that my father thought nothing of giving
me a slap across my shoulders when I mouthed off, tried to get away
with a lie, or did something he said I shouldn’t have done. I recall
equally well how my older brother would get a good swift kick in the
rear for the same things, and for not taking care of his little sister.
Neither of us would have ever considered yelling back at Dad, slamming
doors in anger, or—heaven forbid!—report him for “child abuse.”

And
I’ve made some big mistakes, too.

When
in college, I chose to ride with a friend to a party. I knew I was
getting drunk but I had thought he was just fine. But had I not been
intoxicated, had I been more responsible, I never would have gotten
into the car with him. Mea culpa, I did, and I have been paying for
that wrong choice since that day, having had over 14 surgeries to
my face, some loss of vision, visible and invisible scars, and periodic
joint pain. It was his fault; he was the driver. Nope, the greater
blames goes to me for making a decision that resulted in life-long
problems. I could have not gotten into his car. If anything, I should
have been sober enough to stop him from driving. I made the mistake,
not the college authorities, not the bar, not my classmates, not the
alcohol companies, not the car, not the auto manufacturer–-no, just
plain ol’ me. It hurts owning up to that. But taking ownership of
our behavior and our choices is part of what makes for a respectable
and responsible adult. We all make mistakes, and when we do, we need
to take possession of them and not scapegoat.

The
Lord didn’t accept Eve’s scapegoating when she ate the apple and He
was upset with her. “The devil made me do it,” could have been one
of her defenses. But He had told her and Adam very clearly that if
they violated His rule—“Do not eat the fruit”— He’d not let them forget
it and punishment would be far-reaching. He gave them choices, free
will: “If you don’t disobey me, you’ll be fine; if you do, you have
to pay up.”

Can’t
you just hear Adam passing blame on to Eve? “You always have to have
the best, the most costly, and always what you’re not supposed to
have. If you didn’t want that darn apple so badly, we’d still be romping
in happyland. This is all your fault.”

And
Eve faulting her husband: “Listen up, Adam! You didn’t help any by
letting me go ahead and steal that apple when Father said not to.
I thought He was kidding. You should have done something! And it wasn’t
a great apple anyway; it had a worm in it”

“My
fault? And why do you have this thing with reptiles! Now our actions
will haunt every human after us.”

We
mortals here on Earth have not started our lives with the care-free
and magnificent surroundings Adam and Eve had; rather we have to thrash
about all the harder to make the right decisions. Taking custody of
our choices, our actions, our words, is the foreword to our Book of
Life.

And
like Eve and Adam, often our bad choices can never be undone, and,
hence, the pain and agony are unbearable and prolonged. There are
too many errors we make that we can’t fix, and yet they frequently
affect everyone else, like a domino affect, so taking responsibility
for ourselves is critical not only to ourselves but also to those
who we love and who love us, those who look up to us, those who would
follow in our footsteps, those we meet even if only for a brief second.
Our decisions and scapegoating involve and shape others’ lives as
well.

I
doubt there are a lot of people on our planet who are perfectly happy
and have everything they want. No, we have a blemished world with
faulted individuals. We lost our glory in Original Sin, so to expect
everything to be just exhilarating and to have an ideal life with
everything we want, is both self-denial and selfish-–again, those
“selfs.” Instead, our mission in life is to be productive and to do
for others, and not wait for others to do for us.

All
of our decisions and their consequences come down to the “selfs”:
Self-accountability, self-responsibility, self-answerability, self-conscientiousness,
self-dependability, self-blame, self-reliability, self-trustworthiness,
self-liability, self-respect, self-love, and a host of other “selfs”
that we need to affix in our state of mind instead of pointing fingers
at others who have nothing to do with what decisions we make.

Good
parents know and have always preached and modeled “accountability”
and that for every choice we make in life, there is a counter-force-–sometimes
good, sometimes bad. Sartre preached that whatever choices and decisions
one makes, he or she is to be held responsible and accountable for
them, and if consequences come with those choices, then the person
must either accept and live with them or find ways to improve his
or her decision-making process. In either case, what one chooses is
the responsibility of that one person—not anyone else.

So
how do we handle situations that we believe are “incurable” or unfixable,
or hopeless, even when we want to take responsibility for our actions?
Turn to God. Here’s an example: In an article by Mary Kaye Ritz (Gannett
News Service, July 09.05, “Faith vs. Weight” Followers Say Faith in
God Can Stem Food Abuse; THE DAILY TIMES, Salisbury, MD), the point
is driven home that there is nothing the Lord can’t do Ritz states,
“These days, more people are turning to higher powers when their will
power isn’t cutting it. Jodi Hertz is one of those who tried to help
herself while turning to the Lord when she weighed over 200 lbs; she
lost 85 lbs and looks like an entirely different person.”

Subscribe to the NewsWithViews Daily News Alerts!

Enter Your E-Mail Address:

There
is a difference between taking responsibility for what we do and say,
and shouldering all the burden and heartache. The Lord wants us to
do what we can, on our own, before we ask Him to step in and “just
take care of it.” He’s always present for us, but as a parent, He
understands that his children should try making good choices first,
fixing their problems themselves, not blame others, and then, after
having done that, we call on Him.

Remember,
don’t forget all those “selfs.” Find the real one in you. And grow
up.

Dr. Gianni DeVincent
Hayes is an internationally recognized author of 14 royalty-published
books and over100 articles and short stories in highly circulated and
commercial newspapers and magazines, such as PARADE, US, PEOPLE, REDBOOK,
WOMAN’S DAY, and many others. One of her novels,”22 Friar Street,” is
under a movie option, and her novel on cloning, “Thy Brothers' Reaper,”
also had been optioned by a movie company. Hayes has a doctorate in writing/comparative
literature /humanities, with a concentration in eschatology (Bible prophecy
and politics), and also has earned two masters in education and science.
Her bachelor’s degree is in liberal arts, biology/chemistry; and certification
has been achieved in writing at several universities. She speaks worldwide
and has appeared on dozens of national radio and TV shows.

Currently she
is completing a full-length book on “Globalism and the Loss of Sovereignty”
in all aspects of our lives – from parenting and education to religion,
economy and politics. See at www.thenazarzine.com
which is now under construction, to learn about her religious/patriotic
site. She is working on a third website on the art of writing. She has
her own radio show, “New World Order Disorder,” on www.theamericanvoice.com,
Wednesdays, 9:00pm, EST, and an additional show titled “End Times Apocalypse—ETA”
on Monday nights, 7:00pm, EST at http: www.live365.com/stations/reaamericaod.